Although the election is in the rear-view mirror, it is worth asking a question from this election that will affect the next election. Who should draw the lines for Congress? Supreme Court justices have differing opinions.

The editors ofThe Wall Street Journal begin with these two sentences. “Charles de Gaulle once said that he always had ‘a certain idea of France.’ Now we learn that from her prominent perch as a Supreme Court Justice, Elena Kagan has a certain idea of democracy.”

Her recent comments were about partisan gerrymanders. She disagrees with the majority that decided to take federal courts out of the business of policing state legislatures that draw congressional boundaries. She would like to put judges in charge of drawing maps.

She is correct that these partisan gerrymandered districts do reduce the number of competitive elections. It’s also true that they drive voters to the extremes. But I am not convinced that unelected federal judges will do a better job than state legislators who are accountable to the people.

As I have mentioned in previous commentaries, the idea of so-called independent commissions drawing lines isn’t any better. In California and New York, we saw that these two independent commissions eliminated several Republican seats.

And the solution isn’t always to create majority-minority districts. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote many years ago that putting a significant percentage of minority voters (Black or Hispanic) isn’t the solution. He argued that making both major parties compete for minority votes is healthier for democracy.

We may not like how the system works now, but it at least provides a remedy through electing or defeating state legislators who gerrymandered districts.